


Just

by FallacyFallacy



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Orphanage, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 04:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14609664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallacyFallacy/pseuds/FallacyFallacy
Summary: The day her husband first officially opens their home as an orphanage, Panne retreats to the nearby woods and doesn’t emerge until sunset.Written forSpringfestfor the prompt: childcare - "Bunny rides for all."





	Just

The day her husband first officially opens their home as an orphanage, Panne retreats to the nearby woods and doesn’t emerge until sunset.

It isn’t a surprise. She’d known since years ago, before their marriage, that he had grown up in an orphanage himself, and had asked him straightforwardly if that was what he wished once Grima was defeated and they began to look for where they would make their new home. They were kindred spirits, born among family but a child alone, and they were in unison in their vision for the future. They had each rejected, without discussion, money offered by Chrom and Maribelle (and Virion and Say’ri and…), determined to live their life on their own terms, giving to others and taking nothing.

But all of a sudden, when faced with the reality of it, Panne became overcome with emotion. She wished, deep within her heart of hearts, that there were Taguel children they could help. Poor Taguels, sick Taguels, Taguels who desperately needed their support – any Taguels at all. But she had aged and grown into an adult, and so had Yarne, and there were no Taguel children at all in this world.

When she returns, Libra’s eyes are full of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I was selfish. I should have seen how you didn’t want this.”

“I do want it.” She places a hand to his cheek – so pale and smooth, so utterly human.

“Then why...”

Panne shakes her head. “It is still… hard for me to express...” But even as she speaks, her defences crumble, and she finds herself gathered up in her husband’s arms.

“Are you angry?” he murmurs. “That we can help them, but not your people?”

“...I would have been, once.” Panne closes her eyes. “Now, I am simply… sad.”

The next day, she remains – she still feels conflicted, but she has committed to this, and Libra has more than earned the effort. The children are loud and often obnoxious, but as soon as she sees the way Libra’s eyes sparkle when they tug at his robes or gulp down the food he has cooked, Panne has never felt more sure of a decision in her life.

She listens as she cleans the kitchen, chuckling to herself as the children tease and Libra feigns offence, and smiling to herself when some young girl calls Libra ‘mama’. The pots are rusty – the cheapest they could find, when they would need so many to cook in bulk – but she scrubs them as best she can.

After a few days of this, she hears something strange.

“Where’s the rabbit lady?”

Her ears prick, nose twitching. She doesn’t recognise the scent – at least not among all the other children who have come here.

“What d’ya mean, rabbit lady? Like a girl rabbit?”

“No! She was a lady but she had hair! And bunny ears!”

“Children...” There is Libra, trying to calm them.

Panne sets down her sponge, listening intently.

“Yeah, I saw too! In the window, when we came in!”

“I wanna touch her ears! They look so soft…!”

“Children, please!”

Panne almost flinches herself – it is rare to hear her husband snap, and in front of children, almost unheard of.

“My wife is not a ‘rabbit lady,’” he says sternly. “She is a Taguel – a member of a most noble and admirable species. She would not appreciate being gawked at like an animal.”

Panne hears a sniff, and several mumbled apologies. Her own throat is thick.

She hated humanity, once – let it consume her, bubbling over in her insides like a rancid stew, shaking her limbs and poisoning her from the inside out. She couldn’t express it in words, in actions, in feelings – the depth of that destruction, the sheer number of current and future and far-flung lives snuffed in an instant, was too much to be held by any one being. There would never be allowed any retribution or offered any recompense, and even if it were, it could never come close to balance that which had already been wrought. Panne had been touched by evil, and she is its sole witness, of an end few worlds would ever see.

And yet, when the time came, Panne had risked her life to protect the Exalt, based on nothing more than a story she half-remembered from her childhood about a man who had died hundreds of years ago. Perhaps, for that, she had been rewarded, either by the man who had rescued her people from slavery or the woman who had wished she could have saved them. Because Panne had, after so many years, been blessed – granted the opportunity to meet and marry the most truly _good_ human she has ever met.

She wipes her paws on the dishcloth and steps into the dining room.

“You wanted to see the ‘rabbit lady’?”

The children’s jaws drop, staring with wide eyes. Libra raises his eyebrows and she takes his hand for a moment, pleased when he smiles at her with delight.

“Um!” One girl raises her hand, and Panne stiffens, waiting for the inevitable questions about who she was and why she looked like an animal. But the girl says: “can I touch your ears, please?”

“...why?”

The girl falters, and Panne looks away, trying to modify her apparently scary expression; she really is no good with children.

But a boy is undaunted. “Because it looks really soft, ma’am!”

Panne snorts. “Of course. Yes, Taguel fur is unmatched in its texture.” Which was why her kind used to be raised and slaughtered as children for their pelts, but this was not quite the place or time to mention that.

“Then can we pat it please?”

Libra coughs. “You keep asking that, but touching someone’s hair is a very personal thing. Please respect my wife’s wishes.”

Nothing could ever repay the indignity that had been dealt to her people.

But Panne was not every Taguel. And for the hurt that had been visited on Panne and Panne alone, she would happily accept Libra as her just reward.

“I don’t mind,” she says.

Libra blinks, surprised. “Really?”

“Yes. I wanted to contribute more to the orphanage, anyway.”

“Oh, you really don’t need to-”

It takes only a moment. She hasn’t transformed as often recently, since the war ended, but it still feels as easy as stretching her muscles, form lengthening into a body that is just as much hers as the one she walks around in. She hears the gasps of the children, but for once, all she feels is joy at being able to excite them.

“So.” She sits back on her haunches, smirking at the dozen gobsmacked faces before her. “Anyone want a ride?”

For several moments, there is only silence.

And then -

“Me!” “Me please!” “Nooo, I wanna touch the bunny!”

The children flock to her, stroking her fur and gaping at her features. In moments, two kids have pushed ahead of the pack and clambered eagerly onto her back.

“We have two passengers – everyone else clear the way.” When the other children fail to disperse immedaitely, she lets out a loud snort, baring her teeth, and that fixes the matter (if with some rather loud squeals).

“Down the street and back – how does that sound?”

“Amazing!!” cries the girl with her fists curled tightly into her thick neck fur.

“Then here we go...”

As she leaves, she catches the eye of her husband; she had never seen him look so happy, not even on their wedding day.

She feels the same, down to her very core.


End file.
